Finance Update: May

June 19, 2017

Before we get any further into the month of June, let’s take a quick look back at May and our performance on the financial front. As you may recall from The Path to Profitability, I’ve outlined several key financial milestones for myself:

Milestone #1 = Make $1

Milestone #2 = Breakeven (make $2,500/mo)

Milestone #3 = Turn a profit (>$2,500/mo)

I quickly achieved Milestone #1 in our first month of #runployment with some prize money at the Marin Ultra Challenge, but I ended April more than $2.2k/mo behind on reaching Milestone #2. Fortunately, May was a giant leap in the right direction!

Before I continue, I should mention that if you’re more interested in watching than reading (I’m looking at you, MTV Generation) feel free to skip over to The Mocko Show on YouTube:

May by the $s

Ultra Race of Champions (5/13/17)

My monthly revenue expanded to five sources in May:

$5,000 in Prize Money. I was fortunate to have a lucrative weekend back in my home state of Virginia at the Ultra Race of Champions. Special shout out to my parents for being the best crew east of the Mississippi!

$150 from Sponsor Bonus. Picked up a cool $150 check from DryMax Socks for my 3rd place finish at Lake Sonoma (the race was in April, but the check came in May).

$138.33 from Patreon.Patreon has been the biggest surprise so far. Patreon is a platform for “creators” (anyone producing content from artists to singers, podcasters, coaches, etc.) to attract pledges from fans who want to pledge their support. I added a link to the middle of the description for my YouTube content and was surprised to find more than 50 awesome patrons have already pledged $1 or more to The Mocko Show. I’m embarrassed by how hastily I threw together my Patreon page and I have yet to invest the proper amount of time to show my appreciation to my “super fans”, but if you’re ready this blog post right now–thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

$98.29 from YouTube. I started The Mocko Show at the beginning of the month and averaged almost a video per day for the entire month. Thanks to several podcast interviews that generated some buzz around the channel, more than 1,000 viewers subscribed to the channel and have engaged with my pancake tutorials, long run karaoking, and Mama Mocko antics. I’m having the most fun with this channel and love the engagement that I’ve seen–I’m hoping for bigger things to come in the months ahead!

$46.55 from AdSense. If you’re reading this right now, you’ve probably already been interrupted by a couple dozen banner ads. SORRY! I introduced some code from Google AdSense that juiced up the advertisements a little too aggressively and I can’t seem to track down the specific code that controls this setting. I first want to focus on publishing more written content and then I’ll deal with improving the overall quality of the website (thanks for your patience!).

June Outlook

Cork City Marathon (6/4/17)

It’s a little unfair to provide a forecast for June when we’re already 19 days into the month, but here’s a look at what to expect:

€1,000 in Prize Money. I was fortunate to come from behind to win the Cork City Marathon at the start of the month. This money probably won’t hit my bank account until July (converting Euros to USD takes a longgg time…), but it’s coming!

Similar $ from Patreon. I expect the contribution from Patreon to remain fairly stable until I have a chance to invest more time in improving this channel with different rewards levels/incentives for becoming a patron. Still incredibly appreciative of those who have already contributed!

Similar $ from YouTube. I took a break from The Mocko Show following my trip to Ireland so the amount of new content generating views has decreased. Fortunately my subscriber base has grown a bit since I first kicked things off in May, so the higher views per video should offset the reduction in new content.

Decrease in $ from AdSense. I’ve done a pretty poor job of maintaing my website and generating new content. I expect this lack of attention to be reflected in my traffic for the month and corresponding decrease in revenue. I also still need to throttle back the banner ads a bit so visitors aren’t bombarded by multiple ads per page (again, sorry about that!).

Quarter 1 Summary

With three months having passed since leaving my tech job to focus on running, I’ve officially completed my first quarter of #runemployment! Here’s how I’ve performed:

+ $400 in March
+ $1.59 in April
+ $5,433.17 in May
= $5,834.76 for Q1

To achieve Milestone #2 ($2,500/mo), I would need to bring in $7,500 for any 3 month period. I fell $1,655.24 (or $551.74/mo) short of this goal. While I shouldn’t rely on $5,000 in prize money on a regular basis, it’s promising to see that I’ve diversified into multiple recurring revenue streams (YouTube, AdSense, Patreon) that will continue to grow in the months to come. As I’ve said before, if I can get to 1,000 YouTube subscribers, then I can get to 10,000 subscribers (and eventually 100k!), and I would expect YouTube revenue to grow proportionately with my subscriber base, which could become a nice chunk of change a couple quarters down the road. The key here, as always, is consistency–if you want people to read, listen, re-tweet, like, heart, swipe right, etc., you have to continue to produce engaging content!

Room for Improvement

The big gap in my finances so far–the lack of sponsorship. The DryMax race incentive was a nice start, but I’m hopeful that a strong performance at Western States this weekend will give me the firepower to have a more compelling conversation with sponsors in the not-too-distant future. Costco, Applebee’s, IHOP–I’m coming for ya! More to come on this front soon I hope!

See you back in two weeks for a re-cap of June! But, first, #seeyouinsquaw.

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About

Hey there, friend-o! I'm Chris. 31 years old. Unemployed. Single. Living in a basement. And the happiest I've been in years.

At the start of 2017, I was inspired to leave my tech job in Silicon Valley and follow my true passion--running. The Mocko Show intends to chronicle my thoughts, struggles, and victories as I pursue a career in running.

"Don't you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old (wo)man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone." - Inception

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